I started taking ballet classes when I was in second grade and continued on until fourth grade. I loved it. In those two years, I lived, ate and breathed ballet. I also did a bit of jazz and a whole lot of folk dancing too. But my first love was ballet, still is.
My first ballet recital was also, sadly, my last. My parents didn’t believe in dance. Actually, they didn’t believe in any forms of extra-curriculars. Not sports, not martial arts, not music (except the piano or violin) and certainly not dance. My mother, in the two years I danced, kept harping on the fact that dance is only good for one thing — improving posture. The only way I could get her to pay for dance lessons was to agree to take piano lessons which I absolutely detested. Who wants to sit on a bench for an hour when you can DANCE instead?
As a little girl I must have known that my dancing days were numbered because I crammed as much dancing and ballet knowledge as I could during that short period. I went to about two dozen professional performances, read children’s fiction stories about ballet (“Ballet Shoes” by Noel Streatfield was a particular favorite), poured over manuals and technique books and dancer biographies and history of famous companies. I wanted to be a professional dancer. Silly of me, wasn’t it?
But maybe not. See, I was really good back then. Remember that one recital I told you about? I was the lead. But that recital, which should have been my launching pad for more lessons and more exposure to dance, was actually the beginning of the end. My mother, after watching me perform, declared, “That’s it. You’re done.” As if dancing was some kind of illness and after dancing the one performance I would have managed to shake it off my system.
For eight years after that I didn’t step foot inside a dance studio. In college, I took a modern dance class but was dismayed to find that (of course) I’d lost all my extension and all my technical knowledge of dance (What’s a tendu again?). I gave it up after only 3 classes.
Then I took up ballroom with DH to prep for our wedding. It was so much fun and I fell in love with it. But DH is no dancer and after our wedding our ballroom dancing came to a screeching halt.
I re-entered dance by way of the group fitness industry. In trying to get back into shape after pregnancy #1 I found that the only way to discipline myself to work out was to actually *teach* a class. That way I couldn’t flake on my workouts. While I was learning how to teach, a hip hop instructor took me under her wing and taught me how to teach.
Hip hop is a discipline I picked up pretty easily. The one thing I can still do is follow choreography and I was pleasantly surprised to find the dance style forgiving of my lack of technical knowledge and extensions. Soon I moved from taking hip hop classes to teaching them.
Now my little girl is taking ballet classes and I find myself drawn back into the world of ballet. I’d forgotten how much I loved its flow and precision and technique, how it really is the basis of all dance.
I’m now considering re-entering the ballet studio not as the mom of a student, but as a student myself. There seems to be tons of ballet studios in my hometown that cater to the beginning adult student. I can’t believe I’m considering this. It’s expensive on top of the soccer and dance and gymnastics classes already on the menu for the kids. Can I afford this? Should I even do it? My knees are shot from years of punishing impact and there is some damage to my figure from childbirth. Can I put on a (gulp!) leotard again? Can I even fit it into my already jam-packed schedule of full-time work, mothering, writing, teaching classes and volunteer work?
Actually, the real money question is: am I brave enough to do it all over again?
